Sentenced to 95 years for murder; man to get new trial

June 20, 2012|DAVE STEPHENS | South Bend Tribune

Webb (Photo provided)

SOUTH BEND — Sentenced two years ago to serve 95 years in prison for murder, Brice Webb will face a new trial in October, after the state Supreme Court ordered a new trial in the case.In October 2009, Webb was arrested for the shooting death of his longtime girlfriend Cherlyn Reyes, who was found dead, shot in the head, at their apartment on Lincoln Way East in South Bend.During his May 2010 trial, witnesses testified about how a night of hanging out, drinking and playing with a gun ended when Webb and Reyes got into an argument over Webb’s calling of another girl.A witness testified that Reyes then went into a bathroom to call a friend. That friend later testified that she heard Reyes say, “Brice, no” followed by a gunshot.Webb then allegedly could be heard over the phone, screaming, “Cherlyn baby, wake up, wake up.”Webb then left the bathroom and, according to previous testimony, told his friends that “I just shot my baby mama.”Despite that statement and the presence of witnesses, Webb maintained that he wasn’t at the apartment at the time of the shooting — instead, he said, he had gone to a nearby gas station to buy cigarettes and came home to find Reyes shot.And that denial of involvement is at the heart of the Supreme Court’s decision.After his conviction and sentencing, Webb appealed the conviction, arguing that the jury should have had the chance to find him guilty of reckless homicide.That appeal had been made during Webb’s initial trial before St. Joseph County Superior Court Judge Jerome Frese, but the judge denied the request.During the trial, Frese said Webb could not face a charge of reckless homicide because he denied being involved in the shooting, and claimed that he wasn’t even present when it happened. In other words, if he denied being there for the murder, he couldn’t admit he was there for a case of reckless homicide instead.The Indiana Court of Appeals agreed with Frese’s assessment, but the state Supreme Court decided against it in a split decision.In the court’s March ruling, three justices contend that even though Webb denied being there, evidence presented during the trial — including the testimony of witnesses who said Webb called the shooting an accident — could lead the jury to believe he committed reckless homicide instead of murder.“The evidence in this case is certainly sufficient to support the jury’s guilty verdict of murder,” Justice Robert Rucker wrote in the majority opinion.“However, the evidence also produced a serious evidentiary dispute concerning whether Webb acted knowingly or recklessly.”With the decision, the court reversed Webb’s conviction and remanded him for a new trial.Today, dressed in the orange jumpsuit reserved for state inmates, Webb returned to Frese’s courtroom and stood mostly silent as defense attorney Anthony Luber asked that Webb’s custody be transferred from the state’s prison system to the St. Joseph County Jail, where he’ll stay without bond until a new trial is completed — now scheduled to begin Oct. 22.After the now-vacated conviction, Frese sentenced Webb, then age 25, to themaximum sentence of 65 years, plus an additional 30 years for being a habitual offender, stemming from a previous domestic abuse charge in which Reyes was the victim.The reckless homicide charge, by comparison, carries a maximum sentence of eight years.Staff writer Dave Stephens:dstephens@sbtinfo.com574-235-6209